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Social channels like Facebook, Digg, Flickr, Twitter and Youtube could help newspapers like the Chicago Tribune become "more approachable", according to The Huffington Post. After its entry into social media, the Tribune saw an instantaneous surge in traffic and an 8% growth in pageviews.

"Essentially, social media gives us a year-round, real-time focus group to monitor conversations and keep us in tune with what consumers are thinking," said Bill Adee, associate managing editor for innovation who also leads the Tribune's social media team

The Tribune came up with Colonel Tribune, a "web ambassador" whose purpose is to allow the social media team to "reach out and interact with online communities that congregate around similar interests", wrote the Post.

The Colonel was recently informed through Twitter about a bomb threat and building evacuation in Chicago's Daley Center. The paper's Metro writers looked into the story and it was soon published on the site. The story was then printed on the third page of the Metro section the next day.  

Source: The Huffington Post

See also:
Facebook: a modern tool for accessing news

An interesting and growing market has opened up for newspapers with online editions in Africa: the expat reader looking for news about home from a familiar news source. The print version of newspapers remains paramount in Africa in terms of readership and revenue, but newspaper organizations are waking up to this new medium's potential.

When Kenya's Daily Nation launched its website a decade ago, it had a clear vision. The country's leading newspaper recognised that the 1.8 million Kenyans living abroad had little access to news from home, and that an online edition would have mass appeal to the increasing number of ex-pats who hungered for news. This is something that editors and publishers across Africa should bare in mind: the International Labour Organisation estimates there are some 7.1 million Africans living outside their home country. The number is rising rapidly and by 2025 could climb to one in ten, the IOM predicts.

The Editors Weblog spoke with the Daily Nation's managing editor of special projects, Macharia Gaitho, about his newspapers online edition and he said: "We wanted to extend the paper's audience beyond Kenya's geographic borders to deepen the paper's voice and authority, while also offering a service to the growing Kenyan diaspora." The website was launched formally in October 1998 with a dedicated team, following trials the previous year just before the Kenyan general election.

This service goes back to the very foundation of what newspapers are all about, they are not only providing a news service, they are also serving their communities, even the members of it who have moved away.

The fact that the online edition is very reflective of the print edition is a pull to the expat community who will immediately have the emotional response of recognition and thus feel "familiar" with the web version from their first visit, this familiarity will likely encourage return visitors. As one of the most trusted news organization on the African continent, it would already be a first port of call for expats looking for news from home, but with its easily navigable site, clear graphics, photographs, video footage and with a style that echoes the print version, they have cleverly tapped into the expat market.

Gaitho, who describes the Daily Nation website as the "recognized go-to place online for news on Kenya" said it was important that the web edition reflected the "Nation's look and feel."

The Daily Nation site has recently undergone a revamp and the new-look site achieved 50,000 unique visitors daily in its first week after the launch. The previous version averaged 80,000 unique visitors daily. Explaining this disparity in visitors, Gaitho said: "Because of faster download speeds and improved features, we project the new one will surpass 80k".
 
However, some news organisations in Kenya have been slow to see the potential of this new market and only have a web version as a nod to this evolving technology without fully engaging with the medium. Dr George Ogola at the University of Lancashire says that in Kenya, "The element of interactivity, the very essence of 'experiencing' news online remains unexploited." He believes that news organisations need to recognise that with the advent of online news, the relationship between the reader and the newspaper has been altered.

The appeal of ex-pat readers is therefore another attraction for African newspapers to consider when they lead the charge to online editions, not only for editors looking to boost their news organizations readership and to keep their media house relevant, but also to appeal to advertisers such as Western Union who wish to reach the expat audience. It is as a result now mandatory for any newspaper in Africa to have an online edition.

The Editors Weblog spoke to the Directeur de Publications at Le Jour in Cameroon, Haman Mana, about his thoughts on this issue. Recently launched newspaper Le Jour is a particularly interesting case, as they chose to launch the print and online version at the same time on the 17 September 2007. This decision underscores how online media is growing in importance in Africa, even though print still creates more revenue and attracts a larger readership. When I asked Mana about his thinking behind this decision, he said bluntly, "It is inconceivable for any Cameroonian newspaper that wants to be taken seriously not to have an online edition."



Mana agreed with Gaitho on how it is important that the online edition mirror the newspaper, saying, "The design was an important step for us, because we wanted to keep the spirit of the print edition." Mana reports that a significant portion of Le Jour's online readership is also made up of the Cameroon disapora. He also highlighted how having an online edition is simply good publicity for a newspapers brand, he said the web version has opened up a world of markets to Le Jour and, "it permits us to have a global presence and visibility."

It is therefore clear that the expat reader opens up a whole new market of readers and revenue to Africa's newspapers. For those organisations that are reticent about connecting with the web, they need to be aware they are ignoring a growing market waiting to be exploited. The African web news market is already jostling with competitors, so if they do not leap now, they could miss out completely.

Sources: AllAfrica.com, Business Daily, International Labour Organisation, Daily Nation, Le Jour

This week, Editor & Publisher announced its 8th annual, "10 That Do It Right," a top ten not for the top ten best newspapers, but for ten who are doing exceptionally well in one particular aspect - from marketing to online video, investigative journalism to interactive features - "that merits consideration and maybe even emulation by their peers."

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Journal Sentinel's top leadership is commited to maintianing their 10-person, investigative journalism team, huge for this economic climate.

Carlsbad (N.M.) Current-Argus

The Current-Argus recently implemented a new recruiting strategy for carriers -- recruit people who don't need the job (but will take it on to earn the extra $500-$700 a month). Not only did attrrition drop from almost 20% a month to nearly zero, but the paper is actually saving money.

Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch

The Times-Dispatch holds regular "Public Square" community discussions and have also hosted eight News Roundtables to hear criticism, observations, and recommendations about the paper's coverage. That's on top of the monthly Listening Tour, when Silvestri and other top executives and editors visit one of its 20 core communities to get to better know newsmakers and readers."

USA Today

USA Today's has created a social media site, "Cruise Log." "Everyone can be an author and distribute content easily, but USA Today adds the judgment and guidance that traditional journalists have always provided."

Las Vegas Review-Journal

The Las Vegas paper has launched hugely successful industry-specific job sites. Almost immediately the sites exceeded revenue projections by about 40%, earning about $40,000 a month. They paid for themselves in the first month, said Chelle Bize, the paper's recruitment advertising manager.

The Huntsville (Ala.) Times

Jon Busdeker and Chris Welch, two A&E writes for The Huntsville Times have developed a comedy routine, of sorts. The Wednesday webcast previews the Thursday addition and helps drive print sales.

"Busdeker and Welch perform parodies of Blue Man Group performances, wield mops as swords to preview movies, and exchange white-trash talking with actors from "The American Trailer Park Musical."

Portsmouth (N.H.) Herald

The Herald recently introduced The Daily Beachcomber, a free tabloid for the Hampton beach season. Hampton's beaches are a big market between the end of the school year and Labor Day. As many as 120,000 show up on a good day; the free paper has turned a 28% profit margin.

Chicago Journal.

"'It's a mix of hard news reporting, a little boosterism, some editorial leadership, some calling people out,' Dan Haley, the paper's founder explained. 'We're not apart from the community, we don't hold ourselves apart or above [it].'"

Haley founded the Journal to provide a voice and shape the identity of the inner-city community that was establishing itself in Chicago.

The Times, Ottawa, Ill.

"Starting a newspaper subscriber loyalty program is a no-brainer. Unfortunately, that's often as much brain power as many papers invest in creating and operating the program." The Times established a unique rewards program that actually works.

Santa Barbara (Calif.) Independent

When newsroom conflicts at the rival News-Press left the Santa Barbara community looking for a new news source, the Indepdendent stepped in. "Since the summer of 2006... the News-Press has slipped in daily circulation to 35,000, while the Independent's audited pickup every Thursday is 40,000."

Source: Editor & Publisher

What newspapers need to both survive and thrive is "excellent journalism, strong investment to stay on the cutting edge of technology, and aggressive marketing of the product", according to a survey by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

"Anecdotal evidence suggests "Mo Jo's" (note: mobile journalists) are usually deployed to cover geographical rather than themed beats and tend to act as carpet sweepers, reporting and filing a stream of short, quick stories for the paper's website on minor or routine developments during the course of the day," the survey reported.

The study showed that smaller newspapers focusing on their communities are experiencing more stability.

The general trend seems to be declining specialized beats. Some editors assume that letting beat reporters go will not make much of a difference since the same story may be gotten from somewhere else.

"Eventually, you wake up one day and find there is no somewhere else because everyone has done the same thing you've done," said one of the surveyed editors.

Because reporters find themselves focusing on more than one beat, the coverage is "thinner" and the quality of reporting has gone down, according to PJ Net

"The newspapers and their online editions seem to be leaning towards immediacy, local and short. That may be great for many readers, but not for me. I want that short stuff, but I want context, nuance, depth," wrote PJ Net's chief blogger Leonard Witt.

Source: PJ Net

See also:
US: Study shows newsroom cutbacks are hurting coverage Part 3
US: Study shows newsroom cutbacks are hurting coverage Part 2
US: Study shows newsroom cutbacks are hurting coverage Part 1

Posterous, a new blogging platform powered by email, could allow newspapers to attract more users to their blogging communities.

According to Poynter's Paul Bradshaw, Posterous is "fantastically intuitive, quick, and easy".

Bradshaw gives several examples to demonstrate Posterous' user-friendly platform: create a Posterous blog by sending an email to post@posterous.com; email photos, video, or audio to Posterous and the files will be uploaded in a posting; check blog comments through automatic email notifications.

"It's a very new service, but I think Posterous could become a hugely popular blogging tool, as well as a great tool for blogging on the move," he writes.

Source: Poynter Online

Mark Potts, author of the Recovering Journalist blog, recently wrote about the ten changes he thinks newspapers need to make to thrive. What follows is an edited transcript of his post:

What would you do if you ran a newspaper?

Somebody asked me that question recently, and it made me pull together some of the thoughts I've had recently about the problems that newspapers are having and what they might do to pull out of their current spiral. This is hardly a complete list, but here's a 10-point prescription for ailing newspapers:

1. Make the Web the primary product.
Stop pasting the newspaper onto a screen. Reorganize the newsroom so that its work appears online as quickly as possible. ... And embrace the technology: news Web sites should be full of Web 2.0 goodness like interactive maps, social networking tools, RSS feeds, distribution to mobile devices, etc. Use the medium to its fullest.

2. Local, local, LOCAL!
There are a zillion places to get national and international news, in real time. But newspapers are virtually the only source of truly local news. ... Local news is the last unique franchise that newspapers own, and too many newspapers don't seem to understand this. ... (Why do you think local community newspapers are thriving when big metro dailies are shedding circulation?)

3. If it's widely available elsewhere, don't waste time re-creating it.
Does every newspaper really need its own movie critic? A TV critic? ... Book reviews? Stories from Washington that the AP already has? ... the answer is unequivocably no. Those resources are just wastd.

4. Zero-base the news operation.
Pretend you're starting from scratch. Look at everything that's in the paper and ask tough questions about whether it's still necessary in an age when readers have multiple sources of news and information.

5. Get the readers involved.
As Dan Gillmor has elegantly argued, the audience knows more than news people do. Much more. Tap that knowledge by encouraging reader participation in as many ways as possible: contributing news and information about their communities, sending in photos and videos, commenting on everything. This can't be a token effort, and you absolutely cannot be scared or controlling about it: let the readers get involved at every opportunity. It will greatly improve the product and increase readership.

6. Lose the editorial page.
Unsigned editorials are a relic of a bygone era when newspaper barons exerted power in their community... Here's a thought: Replace it with reader opinions!

7. Expand the advertising base.
In any market, there are thousands of small advertisers that would never consider advertising in the big local newspaper. It's too expensive and covers too broad an area. But those advertisers want to reach the same people the newspaper does. Find a way to make this happen: more focused zoning, cheaper ads, ad rep pay structures that encourage selling to smaller advertisers. This is another area where community papers are running rings around big dailies.

8. Rethink the classifieds.
Craigslist, Monster.com and countless other news competitors have decimated the newspaper classifieds business. ... Anybody who's used craigslist knows how much more effective it is than paid newspaper classifieds. Look hard at your classifieds ... Yes, that may include shifting most of the classifieds online and giving them away for free, in order to keep the critical mass of classifieds that makes them useful.

9. Find new ways to serve advertisers.
What newspapers offer advertisers--display ads, classifieds--really hasn't changed much in a century. Look for ways to change that. Get into the Yellow Pages directory business online. Aggressively offer contextual advertising. Use idle newspaper delivery resources to help local businesses with their delivery needs. Use subscription lists to help businesses find customer leads. Explore interactive advertising forms that go way beyond boring banner ads. Offer data services to help businesses manage their inventories or sell things online. It's not enough to simply sell space in the paper or on the Web site. Help advertisers make their businesses more successful.

10. Take chances. Innovate. Be fearless about trying things--and killing things.
...A wise editor once said to me, there's virtually no history of research and development in the newspaper business, which is odd considering that covering the news is a daily act of research and development. Let's face it: The single biggest innovation in print newspaper journalism in the past decade or so is...Sudoku. Newspapers can and must do better than that to survive.

Source: Recovering Journalist

A new global study of social media use shows that the consumers in the U.S. and Western Europe are more likely to be "passive social-media participants," sharing videos and reading blogs, while those in emerging markets "often create content through blogging, social networks and video and photo sharing sites."

The Interpublic Group media agency had found in its first survey, which was conducted in 2006, a little over half of respondents said they read blogs. Their latest survey found that over 70% did.

Universal McCann conducted surveys to 17,000 Internet users to "track the global rise of consumer-generated content and online communities" over a period of time:
- Their first survey found that 30% watched video online, while this year over 80% had. Video watching platforms such as YouTube has caused watching video clips to become mainstream.
- In 2006, less than 30% said they set up a social network profile, while this year over 60% had. The survey shows big increases in listening to podcasts, subscribing to RSS feeds, commenting on news items, and most other online sharing activities.

Though social media is a global phenomenon, UM found that the way people use social media is more of a cultural difference.
- A little over 60% of Internet users in the U.S. said they read blogs, whereas 26% had created one. Over 70% of Internet users blog in South Korea and China, and about 90% of South Koreans read blogs and 88% read blogs in China.
 
"By and large, in the U.S. we're a country of voyeurs," said David Cohen, U.S. director of digital communications at UM. "We love to watch and consume content created by others, but there's a fairly small group that are doing that creation -- unlike China, which is a country of creators."

Source: Adweek

For the second year in a row, the Knight News Challenge asked the public for ideas to transform community news through digital innovation, and 17 projects were chosen for funding. The projects will be announced on May 14, 2008, at the E&P Interactive Media Conference in Las Vegas.

The top finalists are projects that have the potential to "inform, empower and engage citizens and help them participate in the decision-making process of their neighborhoods, their communities and their countries," according to the Knight News.

Some projects are:

"Doing Away with Dewey ~ Unifying Digital and Physical Collections and Knowledge with a new open organization of knowledge (B3OK)" by Bonnie Pierce: By hyperlinking the materials within libraries with an open global digital knowledge network, all physical library collections, informative materials, media, and books, cultural objects, and specific physical locations will be connected.

"Louretta" by Matthew Waite: An open-source, socially networked, host for small-town weeklies and twice-weekles, which would improve and expand small-town journalism online.  People would participate in and contribute to those social networks, and have mechanisms for following their institutions of government, schools and local sports through databases of public records, newspaper-created information or data entered by the users themselves.

"Flash Storytelling Templates" by Russell Chun: An online site for Flash storytelling templates that is "free, open-source, specific to the needs of the multimedia journalist, and based on community participation and collaboration." Journalists will not need to know Flash to use these templates but will download source files to manipulate and use directly. The community can comment on existing templates, suggest new ones, contribute their own templates, and showcase work that was created with the templates. The site will be available nationally but will be used in to "bring to life those "smaller" stories."

For the complete list, please visit the Knights News site.

Source: Newschallenge.com

Shawn Smith, senior news producer of Mlive.com, the online division of Booth Newspapers in Michigan and a branch of Advance Internet, believes general-interest newspapers should go niche, continuing an ongoing discussion in the media industry. He believes that newspapers are in an outdated form in which readers can learn about general ideas, but not about particular topics. Topic specific publications and blogs are thriving because they constantly attract people with those particular interests.  He concedes that newspaper websites are niche, but only to the extent that they contain local news. But Smith feels that local news isn't even covered adequately.

Smith questions if readers turn to the local papers or a niche website when they want to learn about particular news with some analysis. "Most likely," he writes, "you'll turn to the source that is dedicated to producing breaking and interesting content."

Smith proposes:

1. Breaking newspapers into related sections with a strictly local front section.
2. Printing multiple niche publications for different sections, which can cover the news in a more detailed and interesting way.
3. Making sections on newspaper websites into communities .
4. Giving reporters their own blogs, which will allow more dynamic and comprehensive reporting. Readers may also become great sources and contributors. (For instance, Beatblogging.org, an experimental website comprised of 13 news organizations from around the world, is currently building social networks around their beat reporting to see if this type of reporting will work. Professionals from outside newsrooms add their commentary to the public discussion forums.)
   

Smith may believe that niche trumps general-interest papers. But what about the serendipity of newspapers, finding information you never thought you would discover?

Source: New Media Bytes through IFRA

The Times has used the results of an interactive survey on its website to create a story on Brit's spending habits, complete with the Times' first ever Google map showing the location of survey contributors.

The map was designed using Google Forms and Yahoo Pipes (discussed here by Howard Owens), with help from University of Central Lancashire journalism course leader Andy Dickinson.

Nearly 2500 people responded to the survey.  

"It doesn't have the statistical rigor of an opinion poll, but it's a snapshot of unfiltered opinion and anecdotal, said Tom Whitwell, the Communities Editor of the Times Online. "In the United States, many newspaper have taken the process further, using "crowd-sourcing" to research and write major news stories."

Source: journalism.co.uk

       The term 'citizen journalism', which was coined to describe "the effort to encourage regular folk to use the Internet to report the news directly," according to the New York Times, isn't accurate.

Todd Wolfson, 35, one of the organizers of the Media Mobilizing Project in Philadelphia is  "uncomfortable" with the term 'citizen journalism.' "We prefer the term 'community journalism.'"

Wolfson's group and Juntos, an immigrant rights group, are teaching their communities to make video reports for streaming on the Internet. The Knight Foundation in Miami sponsored the classes with a $150,000 grant.

But as Wolfson pointed out, most people involved are neither US citizens, nor even legal residents.

One of the main issues at stake is "the digital divide," according to Wolfson. Poorer communities typically "are only passive receivers of what appears on the Internet," as they often lack the resources for online publishing. Through these video classes, Wolfson plans on creating opportunities for these communities to share their stories as well.

Source: The New York Times through IFRA  Executive News Service